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Equality Strategy: Working together for Equality

Setting the scene

The Executive is committed to securing a just and inclusive Scotland. This means tackling discrimination and prejudice across Scotland. It also means tackling the systems, behaviour and attitudes that cause them or sustain them.

People and organisations concerned with promoting equality have played an important role in championing changes in legislation and in developing mechanisms for achieving equal opportunities. It is through these efforts that equal opportunities became a key principle of the Scottish Parliament and a priority for the Scottish Executive.

• Devolution and equal opportunities

There was a strong commitment to putting equality at the heart of policy, practices and procedures throughout the preparations for setting up the Scottish Parliament and Scottish Executive. The new democratic institutions were given powers to act on equal opportunities, although the power to legislate on equal opportunities is reserved to the UK Parliament.

The Scotland Act (1998) gives the Scottish Parliament power to encourage equal opportunities, particularly the observing of the equal opportunities requirements. It also has power to impose duties on Scottish public authorities and cross border public bodies operating in Scotland.

The Scotland Act defines equal opportunities as:

"the prevention, elimination or regulation of discrimination between persons on grounds of sex or marital status, on racial grounds, or on grounds of disability, age, sexual orientation, language or social origin, or of other personal attributes, including beliefs or opinions, such as religious beliefs or political opinions."

• Preparing for devolution

The Scottish Parliament and Scottish Executive took up their full powers on 1 July 1999. The Scottish Parliament accepted the recommendations on equal opportunities made by the Consultative Steering Group (CSG), which consulted widely on the ways that it should operate. This included the recommendation that, as a key principle, the Scottish Parliament should recognise the need to promote equal opportunities for all in its operation and its appointments.

• Scottish Parliament's commitment to equal opportunities

To support its commitment to equal opportunities, the Scottish Parliament set up an all-party Equal Opportunities Committee as one of its eight mandatory standing committees. The Committee has responsibility for:

• considering and reporting on equal opportunities issues
• monitoring equal opportunities in Parliament

Parliament's Standing Orders also require all proposed legislation presented by the Executive
to be accompanied by a statement of its impact on equal opportunities.

• Scottish Executive's commitment to equal opportunities

In September 1999, the Scottish Executive published Making it work Together: a Programme for Government which stressed its commitment to promoting equality for all and its determination to place equality at the heart of policymaking.

On 1 December 1999, Wendy Alexander MSP, Minister for Communities with responsibility for equality, published the first Equality Statement to Parliament and on 2 December 1999, Parliament debated equality for the first time.

The Scottish Executive has taken several initiatives in taking forward its commitment to equal opportunities, including:

• designating equal opportunities in the Executive as a key cross cutting issue that is the responsibility of all departments
• setting up a dedicated Equality Unit in the Executive to take forward its work on equality
• strengthening its Equal Opportunities Unit (EOU), which takes the lead in developing the Executive's policies as an employer. The Executive already has an established reputation as an equal opportunities employer. It has extended its family friendly policies and underpinned its efforts with targeted research and training. It intends to employ an outreach worker to reach ethnic minority communities. The new diversity strategy and action plan that are about to be launched will take this work forward and include challenging targets
• continuing to support the Women in Scotland Consultative Forum, which was set up in 1998, and to take forward initiatives that address the issues of concern to women in Scotland. For example, additional resources have been given to fund work on domestic abuse and to establish a domestic abuse hotline, £1 million has been made available to develop a microcredit scheme for women in business, and a detailed study of women and transport is being undertaken
• supporting the publication of guidance to help the mainstreaming of equal opportunities into European Structural Funds and the publication of the Women's Issues in Partnership Working research
• setting up the Lawrence Steering Group, and a time limited Race Equality Advisory Forum (REAF) that will give advice on developing a race equality strategy and action plans to tackle institutional racism and promote race equality. A New Deal Racial Equality Group set up to give advice and guidance on race equality issues across the New Deal initiatives. Work to prepare for a major survey of ethnic minorities in Scotland is underway
• involving disability groups in co-ordinating the Executive's response to the Disability Rights Task Force report, and extending contact with disability groups through policy work in areas such as education, community care, housing and transport
• making contact with groups in the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities
• setting up the first youth parliament in Scotland. Starting pilot programmes to support young people to stay in education. Delivering the New Deal for 18-24 year olds and the New Futures Fund for our most disadvantaged young people
• taking steps to make real improvements to the lives of older people, working in partnership to improve take-up of income and benefits, and promoting concessionary travel through new legislation. Investing in health and social care services to sustain independence and improve the quality of life for older people who live at home and who want to remain there
• introducing legislation that has extended equal opportunities for example, the introduction of the Adults with Incapacity Act and the repeal of Section 2a of the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1988

• Consultation on the development of the equality strategy

The Scottish Executive's consultation document on the approach that it should take to its equality work, Towards an Equality Strategy, was published in January 2000 and widely circulated. The consultation closed in April 2000. An interim report was published in April 2000 and a full analysis of the responses was published in Towards an Equality Strategy - A report on responses to the consultation in June 2000.

Key themes that came from the consultation included:

• a strategic approach to equality work is needed, but this must include actions that have targets and realistic timescales
• there is broad support for the principle of mainstreaming, but there is a need to recognise the different experiences and circumstances of different groups
• there is a range of concepts and definitions of equal opportunities, and these should be made clear in the strategy
• the strategy should reflect the importance of partnership
• training and development on equal opportunities for the Executive should be an essential component of the strategy
• the strategy should include awareness raising both in the Executive, and externally across
  all communities
• there needs to be improvements in data, information and research across the range of equalities issues
• target setting, monitoring and evaluation should be integral to the strategy
• there need to be an effective consultation and communications strategy

The Executive discussed the themes to emerge from the consultation and the development of the strategy with the Scottish Parliament's Equal Opportunities Committee, COSLA, Equal Opportunities Commission, Commission for Racial Equality and Disability Rights Commission. The Executive also engaged with the Equalities Co-ordination Group, which includes the Equality Network and Fair Play. A series of meetings with grass-roots equality organisations took place during July and August 2000.

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